Another week of NaNoWriMo over and I’m keeping well on target having just completed a couple of hundred shy of 30,000 words. This means I’m keeping more than on target (I hoped to reach 30,000 tomorrow – exactly halfway through the month) despite the fact that I’m behind on the story-writing!

I’ve just upload Day 11 but this is actually Day 14 – so how come I’m ahead? Well, simply, I intended to write around 2,000 words each day which should be enough for a story (give or take a few hundred with the occasional short-short or much longer tale). As it turns out, some of these stories are running to 500 or even 1,000 words longer than expected! Who would have guess, huh, that I’d write more words than I planned? O.O The result is some stories are taking longer than a day to get the first draft written, checked and uploaded even though I’m often writing much more than the daily 2,000 words I need.

I should clarify what I mean by ‘first draft’ – the term I’ve used throughout to describe my publishing of this book as it is written. Despite the extra words, what I’m publishing on Writeoutloud is the first public draft. So I do spent quite some time revising, editing and proofing the stories before I publish. However, what the stories lack are the input from readers – which is where you guys come in. I’m grateful to those who have offered their thoughts and given me great encouragement on the blog – please do keep them coming in. I welcome good and not-so-good thoughts because once November is out of the way I will be busy re-crafting the tales in readiness to publish.

By the way, just so you know, I’ll be removing a lot of these stories from the site soon after NaNoWriMo finishes so don’t hang about waiting to read them! All but a handful of the stories will be closed to public view by the time the book publishes so go get a cup of tea or coffee and get reading. Even the longest tale takes no more than fifteen minutes to read (I promise!).

So, this is what you’ve missed this week if you want to catch up:

Into the Dark woods saw the return of my two young characters, Jimmy and Terry, up to no good again as boys growing up in the Eighties should! They will return again, one final time, next week.

The Man in the Attic was my little venture into futuristic, dystopian and Orwellian writing. Several friends ‘in the real world’ have commented how much they liked this story which is encouraging. I deliberately kept the characters anonymous not just because it fitted with the plot but also because I wanted the sense of everyman to be communicated. Under a UKIPian form of Government this could be any British man or woman…

Babu is a re-imagining of a story by one of my favourite writers, the famous Bengali writer, musician and poet, Rabindranath Tagore. I wanted to communicate something of the issues facing children of poor families in Bangladesh while also commenting on some of the well-meaning but tragically inappropriate ways us westerners can sometimes can sometimes try to ‘solve’ Asian problems.

Insignificant Woman No. 1 is the first of a series of story-like essays I will be publishing over the remaining fifteen days or so. Though semi-fictional, these tales are, perhaps, the most personal of all the offerings here and were, in fact, the inspiration for this whole idea. The original title for the book was going to be ‘Insignificant women and other tales’ until I changed it to the current title.

Finally, for this week, the latest story is Fish. I enjoy writing stories ‘which aren’t what they are’ and this is certainly one of those. Not a ‘sting-in-the-tale’ as such (I pretty rubbish at writing that kind of fiction – I’d be hopeless as a crime writer!) but one in which I hope the reader wants to read the story again and has to do a bit of work to decide what really happened. Here, deliberately, less is definitely more.

Well, that’ it for this week’s round-up. Thank you again to all of you who both to click the ‘like’ buttons, share tweets, post on Facebook and comment on the blog. I do appreciate it and hope you will continue.

Best wishes

Ken

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About D K Powell

British freelance journalist, author, writer, editor, musician, educational consultant. I lived with Wifey, Thing I (daughter) & Thing II (son) in Bangladesh for 5-6 years working for an NGO called LAMB. Wifey led the Hospital Rehab department and I used to teach O levels at the school before going full-time as a freelance writer in 2013. Now we're back in the UK learning how to be British again.
When not writing or editing, I'm busy trying to complete a Masters degree in Intercultural relations in Asian Contexts and reading way too many books at once. I also drink tea - lots of it.

Check out my Writer’s Blog: Write Out Loud

This review was first published in the New Age newspaper in Bangladesh, 2nd December 2016. Click here to see the original. Theatre Review: Maya’s Honeymoons – Sunday 20th November, Brady Arts Centre, London By Ken Powell It is no easy ask to present a play tackling a subject a whole community prefers to remain silent […]

There is still time to pick up the few remaining tickets to see the play ‘Maya’s Honeymoons’ this Sunday 20 November at the Brady Arts & Community Centre in London. It’s all but sold out, I’m told, with just a few seats – so book fast. The play, produced by ADDA (Arts and Drama Development Association) is […]